Project Description
This project focuses on the design and fabrication of advanced Zinc-air flow batteries with an automatic control system. The zinc-air flow battery system can be used as a buffer between renewable energy resources and the electrical grid. Renewable energy resources like wind and solar are not always continuous, so there is a huge gap between the peak and base periods. On the other hand, the electricity demand is flexible, and could be significantly increased in just one hour solely because people in the community turn on air conditioning units in their houses. Because of this, there is a big challenge to plug the renewable energy resources into the electrical grid directly. So the electrical grid needs something in between to manage and store the energy. That is the overall objective of this project. The methodology of the project is that we are going to combine the conventional zinc air battery with a redox flow battery to engineer them to a new battery system. The new battery inherits the advantages of two electrochemical systems and overcomes the respective limits.
Tasks and Responsibilites
The student will be responsible for
1. Zinc-air flow battery design and development
2. Research on fluidic electrode making
3. Study on making air electrodes in various structures, components, and catalysts
4. Use a test control program (LabVIEW) for battery management
Desired Qualifications
None listed